Autumn means a slowing down from the intense summer activity. Most of the fields have been harvested, and gardeners are looking at the best way to mulch for the winter. Summer vacations are memories to be added to the scrapbooks of our lives and people are busy preparing the house for upcoming colder weather. In New Mexico, especially after our gloriously wet spell, autumn means a proliferation of sunflowers where there were dead stalks last week.

Sunflower abundance

The air is filled with the enticing smells of roasting green chiles, and balloon enthusiasts will soon be flocking to Albuquerque to watch the Fiesta.

For people involved in dogs, autumn means fewer rattlesnakes and less worry about over heating. Which of course leads to more dog activities. Downside is, of course, shorter days, but for a few weeks around the Solstice we experience both cooler weather and longer days. So we compress many of our activities at the end and beginning of summer. We lure course, trek to shows, and sometimes just gather in parks to enjoy the weather and each other.

Fire Dragon on the move, photo by J Willis

Winter is coming, hiding now to race across the Plains or down from the Arctic to torment us with biting cold winds and the promise of piles of snow (a good pack of heavy wet snow means help for the drought) But for now we’ll take a bit of time to remember why we love living here.

Since I am a lover of all things chile (red or green) I’ll be back to chat about that, and will reveal my embarrassing experience with marijuana.